She taught us all a new way of seeing

French-Iranian graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, and film director Marjane Satrapi (November 22, 1969 -June 4, 2026). PIC/AFP

Simple, opaque inked characters. Easy-to-read features. Not a lot of perspective there either. How good could it really be?"

I still remember a student saying those words to me as I handed him a copy of ‘Persepolis'. I understood why he said this, considering his entire concept of graphic literature revolved around American superheroes and Japanese protagonists. When I met him next, his scepticism had vanished. "I felt like I had lived someone's life," he said.

I found myself thinking about him when I heard of Marjane Satrapi's passing.

I thought about him and every batch of students who discovered Persepolis in class. I thought of discussions that stretched beyond the scheduled hour because a graphic novel had opened conversations that left them thinking for days afterwards. Conversations that evolved beyond the medium itself, conversations about memory, about identity, about family and belonging. Satrapi made that happen in a classroom in Mumbai, the way that very few texts can.

Satrapi taught young minds the power of restraint. Through her visual language, students learned that simplicity could impress audiences, too. There was never an attempt to overwhelm the reader with visual spectacle or technical virtuosity, which is a marker of many a memoir today. Instead, she invited the reader into her world with remarkable honesty. As an artist, she trusted the reader to feel what was left unsaid in her panels of black and white.

As an educator, I find myself returning to Persepolis because it is a good reminder that good storytelling is not always about complexity but about clarity. It is about having the courage to speak in your own voice. And while India is leaning into its own political history of ‘becoming' through equivalents such as Malik Sajad's ‘Munnu: A Boy From Kashmir', and ‘Bhimayana', which tells Dr BR Ambedkar's story through Gond visual tradition, neither gets as much classroom time as an Iranian memoir that teaches Indian students how to move effortlessly between humour and heartbreak.

When students read Satrapi, they encounter a work that does not hide behind technique but a storyteller willing to be vulnerable, one who demonstrates that the more specific and honest a story becomes, the more universal it often feels. She shows that authenticity doesn't limit and that sensitivity is not a weakness.

As we say goodbye to one of the most important visual storytellers of our time, I find myself compelled to think of her legacy. Satrapi's work continues to shape the way people see themselves and the world around them. In the classroom, when we read her work now, it coaxes the reader to look inward, to trust our own experiences and to tell stories with compassion.

She leaves behind a new way of seeing, and what the reader should do now is to turn that seeing inwards too.

Vivek Nag is an animation educator, curriculum designer, and head of the animation department at Whistling Woods International.